


Flour Power

by TheIntelligentHufflepuff



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempt at Humor, Fluffy Ending, Home Invasion, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, SHIELD Agent Bucky Barnes, Sassy Steve Rogers, the violence is only really semi graphic but I put the warning on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26204419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIntelligentHufflepuff/pseuds/TheIntelligentHufflepuff
Summary: “Steve. Buddy. Love of my life. You’d better be playing a fucking prank on me, or so help me-”“You’ll what, set HYDRA on me? That ship’s flown.”Bucky swallowed hard “Are you sure?”“Know any other groups of big burly people with snakes on their helmets and guns as big as me? Firearm guns, that is. Too much tac gear to see their-”“Run.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 9
Kudos: 117





	Flour Power

_ Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz.  _

Agent Murray swivelled in her desk chair to glare at Bucky with all the ardour of a recent graduate in their first week of a new job. Bucky, who was in his second year of employment as a New S.H.I.E.L.D agent, continuing on from five-  _ five _ \- years as an unknowing servant of HYDRA, did not share her enthusiasm. With a tight smile, still scanning the report on his screen, he reached into his breast pocket and pinched his phone off. Smug, Agent Murray swivelled back. 

_ Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz.  _

The squeak of Agent Murray’s chair grated on Bucky’s ears. Out of spite more than anything else, he plucked the phone out of his jacket, glanced at the caller ID with a frown, and brought it to his ear. 

“Steve?” 

The line crackled. Then, with a sharp exhale, Steve responded. 

_ “Hey, Buck.” _

Bucky stiffened; Steve was whispering. Steve never whispered, even when he should. Steve never called Bucky at work either, for that matter. Dread settled in the pit of Bucky’s stomach even before Steve continued-

_ “What do HYDRA agents look like, again?” _

HYDRA.  _ Why _ was it  _ always _ HYDRA? 

“Steve. Buddy. Love of my life. You’d better be playing a fucking prank on me, or so help me-”

_ “You’ll what, set HYDRA on me? That ship’s flown.” _

Bucky swallowed hard “Are you sure?”

_ “Know any other groups of big burly people with snakes on their helmets and guns as big as me? Firearm guns, that is. Too much tac gear to see their-” _

“Run.” 

Bucky’s knees shook as he stood. 

_ “Bucky-” _

_ No _ . Bucky knew that tone. That was the tone that preceded ideas like yelling at their landlord and going to protests during a pandemic even though Steve had an autoimmune disease. The kind of tone that wasn’t so much asking for help as advocating for doing something very stupid for the greater good. 

“Run!” Bucky growled, phone mashed between his ear and shoulder, scrabbling to unlock his desk drawer “You bastard, don’t try to be a hero, just-” 

_ “I can’t. They’re in the living room and the kitchen.” _

Blocking the front and back doors, Bucky’s brain helpfully supplied. A millisecond later, it sunk in. 

Steve had had a doctor’s appointment that morning. Steve always took a while to recover from those appointments. That meant Steve was working from  _ home _ . 

“Fury!” Bucky yelled, abandoning his desk drawer in favour of sprinting across the bullpen to the head office “Hill!” 

_ “I don’t know how much they can help.”  _ Steve put in unhelpfully, sounding almost unruffled and probably tipping his strong chin defiantly at the- 

“If you’re not locked in the bathroom right now I’m ending the engagement.” Bucky threatened, just as he burst into the heads’ office. 

Three guns flew up to meet him; he’d found not only Directors Fury and Hill, but Sam Wilson, alias Captain America. Perfect. 

Hill and Wilson lowered their guns when they recognised him, Wilson throwing in a warm but rightfully concerned smile. Fury held his steady. 

“What the fuck are you doing in my office?” 

“There are HYDRA agents in my living room.” 

_ “And the kitchen.”  _

“And the kitchen. And- I’m putting you on speakerphone- my fiancé is in the bathroom.” 

“I see.” Fury holstered his gun “How do you know he isn’t lying?” 

_ “I’ve got better things to do.”  _

Wilson snorted “Alright. Are the agents still there?” 

A pause in which space Bucky thought of fifty different ways Steve could’ve been killed silently between one breath and the next. 

_ “Yes. Sounds like they’re moving, actually.”  _

“Where?” Hill asked sharply. 

_ “Closer, they’re-”  _ Steve’s voice dropped even lower than the whisper it was already in  _ “coming up the stairs.” _

Bucky’s fists clenched. 

“We have to go. We have to help him. We have to-” 

“Barnes,” Hill began, but Wilson beat her to it, moving around the circular table in the centre of the office to bring a hand to Bucky’s shoulder. He didn’t shake him off.

“We’ll do everything we can, but we have to know the kind of situation we’re responding to first…” 

_ “I’ll see what they’re doing.”  _ Steve said, almost casually and- 

_ Click.  _

Bucky died. Except he didn’t, he just entered a taut white space and waited for the snap of the bullet which would kill Steve, and Bucky with him. 

Except it didn’t come. In fact, things on Steve’s end were so silent that Bucky checked three times that the call hadn’t disconnected before he was distracted by a cheerful notification which told him it was  _ Downloading Image.  _

After a great effort of will, Bucky managed to release the phone and lay it on the table for public scrutiny. 

“Are they unscrewing the lightbulb?” Wilson whispered, mindful of the phone speakers in Steve’s hand. 

“Planting bugs.” Hill corrected him, brows puckered “Steve, can you get another vantage point?” 

“No. No, Steve,  _ leave _ .” Bucky didn’t care if they were planting a bomb set to explode at the very mention of cheese so long as Steve was safely out of range when it happened.

“ _ Please _ ,” he tried again, swallowing his pride “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.” 

_ “Who said I was leavin’ you?”  _ Steve murmured  _ “I’m heading down, jerk.”  _

Bucky ignored Fury’s piercing gaze, Hill’s furrowed brows, and the hand Wilson still had on his shoulder. It was all he could do to breathe. 

_ “Shit.”  _

Bucky’s heart clenched. Something scuffed against something on the other end of the line and Bucky wished fervently that this was a mission run by professionals somewhere with a live video link and back up, and not a hellish situation involving a five-foot-three art therapist and nothing but a mid-range smartphone to let them know what was going on. 

_ BAM!  _

Bucky jerked. That was loud, loud enough to be picked up by the phone’s microphone, it must have been close, it-

_ Pop!  _

A gunshot. That was a gunshot. Shit, fuck, a gunshot, a  _ silenced _ gunshot so not even the neighbours would hear if they were even in at this time in the work day- 

_ “I’m alive!” _ Steve gasped, which would’ve been more comforting if not followed by a rapid series of pops, a grunt, and the horrible ragged breathing that meant Steve’s body was having a bad day. A dull thud, coughing, the slam of a door and any second.  _ Any second _ . Bucky wouldn’t even be  _ widowed _ because they didn’t get the chance to marry in the first place and- 

_ “Where should I go?” _

“What?” 

_ “Where should I go? Can’t just- ouch- can’t just sprint down the street forever.”  _

Hill’s jaw dropped, which Bucky felt was rich coming from the lady who not three minutes ago had seemingly forgotten that Steve was a civilian and not her own personal observation tool. 

“You’re out?”

_ “Yep.”  _

Bucky grabbed his phone, as if holding it could bring Steve nearer “Are you hurt?” 

_ “A bit. It probably looks worse than it is. Head wounds always bleed more.” _

“You got shot in the head?”

_ “No. I got dropped on my head. I got shot in my shin. Slightly.” _

“Someone will pick you up and take you to HQ.” Bucky told Steve, daring Fury or Hill to disagree with him. Wisely, their mouths stayed shut. 

“And I quit.” 

“What?” 

_ “What?” _

“I quit.” Bucky reiterated, glaring at Hill, Fury, and his phone as a proxy for Steve; Wilson was spared his wrath for looking sympathetic “This is it. This is the line. I quit.” 

Fury crossed his arms “Are you serving your notice to HYDRA too?” 

Bucky copied his posture, more impressively if he said so himself. Metal arms certainly had their advantages. 

“They won’t come after me. I’m nothing to them.” 

_ “The bugs planted in our lightbulbs say otherwise.”  _ Steve quipped  _ “Also, it was ‘the limit’ after the Potomac fiasco, and you lasted a whole six months before rejoining.” _

“Because that was the Potomac fiasco, not thugs in our house trying to kill you.” 

_ “They weren’t specifically trying to kill me, I just happened to be there and I spooked them. Anyway,” _ and Bucky could  _ sense  _ the bastard shrugging  _ “If I hadn’t been there we wouldn’t know we’d been bugged.”  _

“Fuck you. Fuck you, you’ve put me through hell today, I-” he sobbed, dry eyed, and bit his hand.

_ “Bucky...I’ll be there soon.”  _

*** 

Wilson had made him a hot chocolate and sat next to Bucky to watch as he drank it down to the sticky dregs. The sugar had helped with Bucky’s shakes, but he was in no way calm when the door to the Directors’ office was opened softly by someone bearing a suspicious resemblance to Agent Murray and Steve limped in. 

Bucky was up in an instant, eyes roving over every inch of him. A horrible bandage wrapped around his head, his skin was pale, and his trousers rode up to reveal a heavy lump of gauze but other than that- 

“You’re alright.” Bucky grit out. 

Steve nodded, his own eyes darting across Bucky in a similar way. 

“You are too.” 

“More or less.” 

With one final pat on the back, Wilson vacated the office, leaving the couple alone. 

The first thing Bucky wanted to do with their newfound privacy was whack Steve around the head. But Bucky had only hit Steve in anger two times before, both of which had been when they were considerably younger and not together in a romantic sense, so he followed his second impulse; to cross the room in three long strides and draw Steve into a cobra-tight hug. 

“You’re alright.” he repeated, burying his face at the base of Steve’s neck and breathing him in, feeling the warmth of his skin and the simultaneous rise and fall of their chests as Steve pulled him even closer. 

“I’m sorry I scared you.” Steve admitted, gruff and sincere in his way, gently untying Bucky’s bun to card his hands through his hair just so. 

“You should have stayed in the bathroom.” 

Steve was nice enough not to comment on the tears now dripping into his jumper. 

“I could’ve, but who’s to say they wouldn’t a’ just shot me through the door anyway. ‘Least this way I could find out what they wanted from you, do something useful before they got me. And I escaped.” 

“Barely, I-” Bucky screwed his eyes shut “Today was a nightmare for me. I’ve had literal nightmares about my job following me home and getting to you, but at least in those I’ve  _ been  _ there. I’ve- I’ve had a  _ chance  _ of protecting you.” 

“You mean getting yourself killed doing something heroic.” Steve scoffed. 

“Look who’s talking.” 

Steve hummed. Then he pulled back, forcing Bucky to withdraw too, and fixed him with a frown.

“Just because I’m not as physically fit or as well-trained as you doesn’t mean I’m made of glass.” 

“I know.” 

Steve looked skeptical. 

“Seriously,” Bucky smiled faintly “I’ve seen what you can do with a beer bottle, I know. But  _ I  _ would struggle to deal with being weaponless and pinned between two groups of HYDRA agents unexpectedly- you just said it yourself, you’re untrained and nowhere near as superhumanly fit as we have to be. I’m impressed that you managed to do what you did. I just-” 

Steve kissed him, fimly. Bucky leant into it, deepening it, eager to put everything to rights. When the kiss broke, he frowned. 

“That bad?” Steve teased, subtly leading Bucky back towards the seats.

“No, it’s just- why do you smell like flour.” 

“Oh,” Steve grinned wickedly “Threw a bag at a HYDRA man and ran for it while he was coughing and rubbing at his eyes. It was an oddly surreal thing to see, even for today.” 

“Clever.” Bucky smirked, dragging his chair closer to Steve’s “We need to find somewhere to stay.” 

“I’ve asked Nat.” 

A spy herself. Good. As unlikely as it was for the same thing to happen twice in one day, Bucky would feel better going to bed a few doors away from someone else who was actually trained to deal with enemy action. 

Steve eyed Bucky knowingly, but fondly. 

Bucky frowned “Why did you call me?”

“Firstly you’re  _ still _ ”- Bucky pretended not to notice the emphasis- “a S.H.I.E.L.D Agent. Kinda obvious, there. Secondly,” Steve’s hand slid into Bucky’s warmer one, their engagement rings sitting side by side “Who else would I call. My boss? You’re off your rocker, Barnes.” 

Bucky snorted and, finally, laughed. 

**Author's Note:**

> It may seem slightly mean to Maria Hill but it's more that I was like 'she's so used to interacting directly exclusively with her badass spy employees that esp if she herself is in a work context she probs would just forget that civilians not running away screaming but still v much being civillians is a thing'
> 
> Hints at context are trying to paint out a vague AU where Sam was cap when the whole TWS plotline happened, Bucky was a SHIELD agent during it. Now SHIELD has reformed but like better, and the story's in like 2022 or something but without the Thanos stuff having happened bc I referenced the current pandemic and I was like I'm not gonna put the poor people of the mcu through a pandemic and then Thanos right after
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Any mistakes are either bc I'm posting this at 2am, or bc I made a mistake I would've made anyway


End file.
